The Supreme Court, on Wednesday, lambasted the authorities under Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh government for the illegal demolition of houses for road widening and termed the action by the state “high-handed” and without authority of law.

A bench comprising Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice J.B. Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra also directed the Uttar Pradesh government to grant punitive compensation of Rs 25 lakhs to the person whose house was demolished.

Anguished over the way authorities demolished a house for the widening of the road without issuing any notice and merely by making a public announcement by beating drums, Justice Pardiwala said, “You can’t come with bulldozers and demolish houses overnight. You don’t give time to the family to vacate. What about the household articles? There has to be due process followed.”

The bench further directed the Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary to conduct a disciplinary inquiry against the officers responsible for the illegal demolitions.

The top court chided the authorities in the course of the hearing of a suo motu case registered in 2020 based on a letter complaint sent by Manoj Tibrewal Aakash, whose house was demolished in 2019 by state authorities. He claimed that his house was demolished without any prior notice or explanation for allegedly encroaching on a highway.

As the state government said that the petitioner had encroached on public land, CJI Chandrachud quipped, “You say that he was an encroacher of 3.7 sq. meters. We take it, we are not giving him a certificate for it, but how can you start demolishing people’s houses like that? This is lawlessness… walking into somebody’s house…”

The bench said that no notice was served to the petitioner and no due process was followed.

“This is completely high-handed. Where is the due process followed? We have the affidavit that says no notice was issued, you only went to the site and informed the people through loudspeaker. You can’t just with a beat of a drum tell people to vacate houses and demolish them. There has to be proper notice,” said the bench to the UP government.

The top court took note of an inquiry report by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) which revealed that the demolition was far more extensive than the supposed encroachment.

It also laid down the steps the state authorities to follow before removing encroachments for road widening projects and said the copy of the order to be circulated to all states/Union Territories.

The top court said that while carrying out road widening, the state must ascertain the existing width of the road, issue formal notices if any encroachments are found, and allow residents to raise objections.

It further said that any decision against an objection must come in the form of a reasoned order with sufficient time allowed for residents to vacate.